Archive for July, 2010

Administration Warned That It Must Do More To Curb China’s Currency Manipulation

Lawmakers and others are warning administration officials that they must do more to ensure a more fairly-valued Chinese currency, or otherwise put American jobs and President Obama’s hopes to grow the U.S. economy in jeopardy.

The U.S. Treasury issued a report Thursday designating the Chinese currency as undervalued — but stopped short of designating China as a currency manipulator.

China’s undervalued yuan, also called renminbi, artificially depresses the cost of Chinese products and falsely increases the price of American goods. The resulting lopsided trade has closed American factories and cost American jobs.

Full Story: On The Hill: Administration Warned That It Must Do More To Curb China’s Currency Manipulation.

George Carlin -”Who Really Controls America”

A White God Freakout

Matt Taibi:

Thanks to Jonathan Schwarz of TinyRevolution.com for passing along this hilarious exchange between Time reporter Alex Perry and Julie Hollar of FAIR (Fairness and Accuracy in Reporting). It’s one of the best case studies in the dangers of Google that I’ve ever seen.

The thing about Googling yourself — look, everyone’s done it. In the most literal sense, it’s like jacking off, and find me the grown man who’ll deny that he does that. But part of the growing up process is learning that playing with oneself, if not shameful and sordid exactly, it’s certainly something to be done at all times in private. Not even your average eight year old will go charging bug-eyed into a room full of grownups frantically pulling on his Johnson. Time reporter Alex Perry turns out to be a different story, however.

Background: last week, the press watchdogs at FAIR did a review of Perry’s scare piece about how the Chinese are taking over Africa (China’s New Focus on Africa, June 24th). The Perry piece used the standard Western-correspondent formula for covering the third world, a formula I’m very familiar with from my Russia days. In it, the moral of every story you write has to be that the backward subject country cannot survive without the indulgence, political protection, and gigantic brain-power of the superior Western societies. At the eXile we used to call this “White God” reporting.

Full Story: A White God Freakout — RollingStone.com.

Is the IMF about Ready to Muscle U.S. Taxpayers?

I smell a rat.

The IMF has long been a bought, and paid for, muscle arm of the U.S. government and the banking elite.

The play goes like this. Banks loan money to third world countries that have no chance in hell of paying the money back. The IMF comes in with “austerity” programs that include heavy new tax burdens on the working class. The revenue from the new taxes will, of course, go to payoff the banking elite. It’s a sick game, but the elite seem to get their jollies by pulling this scam in country after country.

It appears the elite appear to want to up the ante. It appears they are getting set to turn the guns inward and go after the hard earned money of Americans.

WaPo reports:

Full Story: EconomicPolicyJournal.com: Is the IMF about Ready to Muscle U.S. Taxpayers?.

Are Low Taxes Exacerbating the Recession?

by David Sirota  :

the Reagan zeitgeist created the illusion that taxes stunt economic growth, the numbers prove that higher marginal tax rates generate more resources for the job-creating,………

As the planet’s economy keeps stumbling, the phrase “worst recession since the Great Depression” has become the new “global war on terror” — a term whose overuse has rendered it both meaningless and acronym-worthy. And just like that previously ubiquitous phrase, references to the WRSTGD are almost always followed by flimsy and contradictory explanations.

Republicans who ran up massive deficits say the recession comes from overspending. Democrats who gutted the job market with free trade policies nonetheless insist it’s all George W. Bush’s fault. Meanwhile, pundits who cheered both sides now offer non-sequiturs, blaming excessive partisanship for our problems.

But as history (and Freakonomics) teaches, such oversimplified memes tend to obscure the counterintuitive notions that often hold the most profound truths. And in the case of the WRSTGD, the most important of these is the idea that we are in economic dire straits because tax rates are too low.

Full Story: Are Low Taxes Exacerbating the Recession? by David Sirota on Creators.com – A Syndicate Of Talent.

Wealthy Reap Rewards While Those Who Work Lose

Times are tough for workers in the U.S. where a recession has a stranglehold on much of the economy, but life is perfectly rosy for those at the top.

The riches of the wealthiest North Americans grew by double digits in 2009, primarily from interest their money earned when it was invested in the stock market and elsewhere, according to a report by the Boston Consulting Group.

Millionaires in the U.S. and Canada saw their wealth increase 15 percent in 2009, to a total of 4.6 trillion dollars, the report found.

Worldwide, 11 million – or less than 1 percent of all households – were millionaires in 2009. They owned about 38 percent of the world’s wealth or 111 trillion dollars, up from about 36 percent in 2008, according to Boston Consulting Group.

Full Story: Wealthy Reap Rewards While Those Who Work Lose | CommonDreams.org.

Need A Job? Try Canada, Where Hiring Is Booming And Home Prices Are Rising

Stubbornly high unemployment rates got you down? Not sold on the economic recovery? Look no further than America’s polite neighbor to the north, where jobs numbers are surging and home prices have been rising steadily for nearly a year.

Last month, Canada, a nation with roughly one tenth of our population, created about 10,000 more new jobs than America.

Yes, Canada’s economic recovery is outpacing our own. In terms of sheer job creation, June saw Canada create jobs at a pace that was five times the rate predicted by economists, Bloomberg News reports. Canada added 93,200 jobs in June, while U.S. private employers added just 83,000.

Full Story: Need A Job? Try Canada, Where Hiring Is Booming And Home Prices Are Rising.

The Vanishing American Consumer and the Coming Trade War

Robert Reich:

It’s clear American consumers can’t get the economy going on their own. They can’t restart the jobs machine. They’ve run out of money and credit.

President Obama has vowed to double U.S. exports within the next five years. That’s because exports are critical for rebooting the American economy. It’s clear American consumers can’t get the economy going on their own. They can’t restart the jobs machine. They’ve run out of money and credit.

It’s not just that one out of four Americans is unemployed or underemployed (working part-time, overqualified, or at a lower wage than before). More significantly, the Great Recession burst the housing bubble that had let American consumers turn their homes into ATMs. Now the cash machines are closed.

So the administration figures foreign consumers will have to fill the gap.

Problem is, most other economies also relied on American consumers. Remember the trade gap? Americans used to be the world’s biggest and most reliable customers — sucking in high-tech gadgets assembled in China, car parts from Japan, shirts and shoes from Southeast Asia, and precision instruments from Germany.

Full Story: Robert Reich: The Vanishing American Consumer and the Coming Trade War.

Alan Grayson To The Fed: ‘We’ll Be Back’

The Wall Street reform package currently awaiting the return of Congress from the Fourth of July recess is packed with provisions that will remake the financial landscape. One element, though, which has gotten relatively little attention in the media, is a wild card: the authorization of a far-reaching audit of the Federal Reserve for the first time in the central bank’s history.

The audit measure is retroactive — it requires unprecedented disclosure of the identity of businesses, banks, hedge funds, foreign central banks or any other entity that was on the receiving end of Fed largess, and will reveal how much they got and on what terms. The information is required to be posted online within 30 days of the law’s enactment.

Depending on what the audit turns up, the Fed could find itself back in the public eye and could face growing calls for reform. “I think once people see what the first audit discloses, they’re going to want to see more,” said Rep. Alan Grayson (D-Fla.), who, along with Rep. Ron Paul (R-Texas), shepherded the audit bill through the House. “We’ll be back.”

Full Story: Alan Grayson To The Fed: ‘We’ll Be Back’.

Kevin Costner’s Oil Spill Cleanup Machine Now At Work In The Gulf (PHOTOS)

Kevin Costner’s company has sent an oil-skimming vessel to help clean some of the crude that has fouled the Gulf of Mexico.

The actor told workers and visitors Thursday who had come to see the latest in the fight against the oil spill that “the machine I once dreamed of is here to help you.”

The Ella G, now one of the Vessels of Opportunity, was retrofitted to receive oil and water from the skimmer, separate the oil and place it in storage tanks, and return the cleaned water to the Gulf. It had once been an offshore supply barge.

Full Story: Kevin Costner’s Oil Spill Cleanup Machine Now At Work In The Gulf (PHOTOS).

Despite Obama’s Lofty Words, Scientific Integrity Rules Are Lagging

Last March, President Obama promised he’d have a strategy for restoring scientific integrity to the federal government on hand by July 29. A full year later, federal agencies still have not received any new directives and some government scientists say that conditions have not improved noticeably since Obama took power.

Obama made scientific integrity an issue in his presidential campaign, and his March 9, 2009 memo outlined a series of high-minded principles — advocating, for instance, for “transparency in the preparation, identification, and use of scientific and technological information in policymaking.”

The memo also ordered John Holdren, the director of the White House’s Office of Science and Technology Policy (OSTP) to develop guidelines “designed to guarantee scientific integrity throughout the executive branch.” Obama gave Holdren 120 days. That deadline came and went. And Friday is its one-year anniversary.

Full Story: Despite Obama’s Lofty Words, Scientific Integrity Rules Are Lagging.

Obama To Open Up 1.8 Million Alaskan Acres To Oil Drilling

The Interior Department is offering oil and gas leases on 1.8 million acres of Alaska’s National Petroleum Reserve while promising to protect critical migratory bird and caribou habitat.

Interior Secretary Ken Salazar says the Bureau of Land Management will offer 190 tracts with bids to be opened Aug. 11 in Anchorage. The sale is one of dozens, mostly in Western states, that Salazar announced in November.

The petroleum reserve covers 23 million acres on Alaska’s North Slope. That’s an area slightly smaller than the state of Indiana.

Full Story: Obama To Open Up 1.8 Million Alaskan Acres To Oil Drilling.

Residents outraged: BP dumping oily waste in Gulf landfills

The Gulf area may have to live with oil long after the beaches have been cleaned. Some residents are outraged that BP has been dumping oily waste in landfills in their areas.

After BP crews scoop up the oil off Gulf beaches, the waste is transported to Mississippi’s Pecan Grove landfill. Even workers’ protective suits, gloves, shovels, rakes and anything else that touches oil is buried there.

The Board of Supervisors in Harrison, Mississippi passed a resolution saying they don’t want any BP waste in their community but there is little they can do. BP has cut deals with Waste Management, the owners of the landfill. They answer to the state instead of local county government.

Full Story: Residents outraged: BP dumping oily waste in Gulf landfills | Raw Story.

Poll: 55% of Likely Voters Think Obama Is a Socialist

This new poll from James Carville’s Democracy Corps firm is bad, bad news for Obama, incumbent Democrats, and the White House’s economic message. If you’re a Republican, be happy for the midterms.

First, when asked if they thought the president was a socialist, 55 percent of likely voters said yes. Only 39 percent said no. Oh god.

For the record, if Obama’s trying to be a socialist, he’s doing a terrible job! He’s cut taxes for small businesses and increased government spending mostly to replace lost income and state revenue. Financial reform is less like a straitjacket for banks and more like a tight sweater whose dimensions and fit will be determined by future studies.

Full Story: Poll: 55% of Likely Voters Think Obama Is a Socialist – Business – The Atlantic.

Walking Away From Million-Dollar Mortgages

No need for tears, but the well-off are losing their master suites and saying goodbye to their wine cellars.

The housing bust that began among the working class in remote subdivisions and quickly progressed to the suburban middle class is striking the upper class in privileged enclaves like this one in Silicon Valley.

Whether it is their residence, a second home or a house bought as an investment, the rich have stopped paying the mortgage at a rate that greatly exceeds the rest of the population.

Full Story: Walking Away From Million-Dollar Mortgages – NYTimes.com.

Town Hall Turns Ugly For Hatch, Conservatives Yell That He’s Shilling For Bankers

This past Wednesday, Sen. Orrin Hatch (R-UT) held a town hall in Layton, Utah, to hear the concerns of his constituents. The senator covered issues ranging from immigration to his votes against confirming Supreme Court justices.

During one point of the town hall, Hatch opened up the floor for questions from his constituents. One asked him why, given the reckless and criminal behavior of Wall Street financial elites in the lead up to the financial crisis, there have not been more significant prosecutions of bankers who broke the law. While Hatch quickly agreed that some bankers may have committed crimes and should be investigated, he quickly veered off to attacking Democratic proposals to place new regulations on Wall Street.

The same questioner then followed up, “I don’t think you get it, sir. We’re angry at the bankers, I don’t want to hear all this about the government!” Hatch then changed his tone, put on an angry face, and replied that he thinks some bankers have committed crimes. He attacked Democrats, claiming Wall Street “keeps Democrats in power” and said Republicans “don’t get much help from them”:

Full Story: Think Progress » Town Hall Turns Ugly For Hatch, Conservatives Yell That He’s Shilling For Bankers.

CNBC host slams right wing’s false Jones Act meme as ‘offensive to intelligence.’

Since BP’s oil gusher in the Gulf of Mexico began, a common right wing refrain has been that the Jones Act — a 1920 law stipulating that commerce between U.S. ports needs to occur on U.S. ships — has been hindering the cleanup effort by forcing the federal government to reject aid from foreign nations. Conservative lawmakers and pundits have been claiming that the Obama administration is refusing to waive the Jones Act out of deference to the will of labor unions. Earlier this month, McClatchy demolished this meme, but that hasn’t stopped the drumbeat, with Sen. John McCain (R-AZ) going so far as to say that aid from 17 countries has been rejected because of the Jones Act. Yesterday, on CNBC, Hans Bader of the Competitive Enterprise Institute repeated the talking point, but he ran into a host who had done his homework. CNBC’s Mark Haines noted that 68 different offers of foreign cleanup help have been accepted, and then challenged Bader to cite examples of the Jones Act causing a problem:

HAINES: How many rejections under the Jones Act?

BADER: I don’t know how many.

HAINES: Excuse me, Senator McCarthy, you can’t tell us how many there are? I want the facts, give us hard facts, give us evidence, not innuendo, not baseless accusations, okay? It’s offensive to intelligence. The fact is sir, you have told us there are examples of rejections and you can not name a single one.

Watch it:

Full Story: Think Progress » CNBC host slams right wing’s false Jones Act meme as ‘offensive to intelligence.’.

Rep. Steve King has not participated in a formal debate since he was elected.

Right wing leader Rep. Steve King (R-IA) has built a policy platform on unfounded and radical assertions. On immigration: Deport a liberal. On health care reform: Maybe opponents should secede. On employment discrimination: Stop wearing your sexuality on your sleeve. Despite the outlandishness of his policy solutions, King himself has never had to answer for them in a formal debate since his election in 2003. But his 2010 challenger Matt Campbell (D) called out the incumbent yesterday and invited him to an “issue-oriented debate.” Citing debate as a “lynchpin” of democracy and an “obligation” of elected officials, Campbell says King’s participation is “long overdue”:

King has never formally debated an opponent since he’s been elected, and Campbell says it’s long overdue for King to respect the American democratic process.

“It’s long overdue for King to respect the American democratic process,” Campbell says.

Full Story: Think Progress » Rep. Steve King has not participated in a formal debate since he was elected..

Really scary video: BP oil gusher sludge could reach US east coast in one year

The volcanic BP oil gusher is beginning its rapid spread advancing across the Gulf of Mexico. It won’t be long before the toxic sludge reaches the Atlantic Ocean and spreads all the way up to middle of the US Eastern shores and pollute a significant portion of the Atlantic.

Is this crazy or what? Oil on the Hudson River? It may only be a model but it’s possible.

According to University of Hawaii researchers Axel Timmermann and Fabian Schloesser the ocean’s currents predicts how the oil gusher’s sludge flows could spread over a year.

Full Story: City Brights: Yobie Benjamin : Really scary video: BP oil gusher sludge could reach US east coast in one year.

Pity the Poor C.E.O.’s

Job creation has been disappointing, but first-quarter corporate profits were up 44 percent from a year earlier. Consumers are nervous, but the Dow, which was below 8,000 on the day President Obama was inaugurated, is now over 10,000. In a rational universe, American business would be very happy with Mr. Obama.

But no. All the buzz lately is that the Obama administration is “antibusiness.” And there are widespread claims that fears about taxes, regulation and budget deficits are holding down business spending and blocking economic recovery.

How much truth is there to these claims? None. Business spending is indeed low, but no lower than one would have expected given widespread overcapacity and weak consumer spending. Business leaders are feeling unloved, but giving them a group hug won’t cure what ails the economy

Full Story: Op-Ed Columnist – Pity the Poor C.E.O.’s – NYTimes.com.

Boehner Invites Lobbyists To Help Form GOP Agenda In Intimate Meeting At His Office

A few months ago, House Republicans launched an effort called Americans Speaking Out, which purports to give average Americans the ability to offer their input on what Congress should do. It became quickly apparent that the enterprise was little more than a taxpayer-funded PR gimmick to help Republicans market their agenda for this fall’s elections, even as they ignored any ideas they didn’t already support.

Now, under the banner of Americans Speaking Out, House Minority Leader John Boehner (R-OH) has summoned advice from those who he truly seems interested in listening to: lobbyists. Roll Call reports that Boehner has invited “senior Republican lobbyists and top officials from several large trade groups” to a meeting at Boehner’s office to discuss “their suggestions for a new GOP agenda”:

The meeting is part of the House leaders’ initiative called America Speaking Out, which is intended to draw broad input to create a new policy agenda for the party to launch in the fall.

Full Story: Think Progress » Boehner Invites Lobbyists To Help Form GOP Agenda In Intimate Meeting At His Office.

Average Japanese CEO Earns One-Sixth As Much As American CEOs

Last year, Sen. Chuck Grassley (R-IA) responded to news that AIG executives — who were bailed out with tens of billions of dollars from American taxpayers — were due to receive $165 million in bonuses by saying that they should “follow the Japanese example and come before the American people and take that deep bow and say I’m sorry and then either do one of two things: resign or go commit suicide.”

While committing ritual suicide is a rather extreme “example” to be learned from Japanese society, a more appropriate lesson is how the Japanese structure their pay incentives for corporate executives. Last week, Japanese securities regulators began “requiring Japanese companies to disclose pay for executives making more than 100 million yen ($1.1 million).” BusinessWeek reports that the disclosures reveal that the average compensation of a Japanese CEO is less than one-sixth that of their American counterpart and 16 times more than the average Japanese worker:

Japan is the land of the bargain-basement CEO. On June 30 securities regulators began requiring Japanese companies to disclose pay for executives making more than 100 million yen ($1.1 million). While the headlines went to the top earners—foreigners Carlos Ghosn of Nissan Motor (NSANY) and Sony’s (SNE) Howard Stringer—the big surprise was how few Japanese business leaders take home super-size paychecks.

Full Story: Think Progress » Average Japanese CEO Earns One-Sixth As Much As American CEOs.

Majority Of Judges Hearing Drilling Moratorium Appeal Attended Oil-Funded Junkets

Last month, Judge Martin Feldman, a federal trial judge in Louisiana, handed down a poorly-reasoned opinion lifting the Obama Administration’s temportary moratorium on new oil drilling in the Gulf of Mexico. Judge Feldman’s most recent financial disclosure form indicates that he is heavily invested in oil companies.

Today in New Orleans, a three-judge panel of the US Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit will consider whether to stay Feldman’s decision. According to a new report by the Alliance for Justice, however, it is unlikely that these Fifth Circuit judges will approach the case without the perception of bias.

Judges Jerry Smith and Eugene Davis, both of whom are assigned to today’s panel, attended expense-paid “junkets for judges” sponsored by an oil-industry front group:

Full Story: Think Progress » Majority Of Judges Hearing Drilling Moratorium Appeal Attended Oil-Funded Junkets.

Stephen Moore calls for raising taxes on the poor in order to pay for tax cuts for the rich.

The Bush tax cuts are scheduled to expire in January. President Obama has expressed a desire to preserve the cuts for the middle class while letting tax rates for the wealthy reset to where they were during the Clinton administration. Conservative lawmakers and pundits have been fearmongering that allowing the tax cuts for the wealthy to expire will kill job creation and small businesses (despite the fact that fewer than 2 percent of small business owners will be affected). Last night on CNBC, Wall Street Journal editorial board member Stephen Moore went so far as to say that he can’t “see the sense” of allowing cuts for the rich to expire, and then advocated that taxes be raised on the poorest Americans in order to finance more tax cuts for the rich:

I just don’t see the sense of this. In fact, if I could have my ‘druthers, I’d raise the ten percent tax rate to fifteen percent and lower the [top] rates.

Watch it:

Full Story: Think Progress » Stephen Moore calls for raising taxes on the poor in order to pay for tax cuts for the rich..

Identifying Suspicious Short Selling, But Not Who’s Behind the Trades

Last weekend, The Wall Street Journal highlighted new academic research showing that investors may be trading on insider information after companies approach hedge funds for loans.

Researchers found that on average, in the five days before companies announce a loan from a hedge fund, the volume of short sales increases by 75 percent as compared with the 60 days before a deal is announced. There was no comparable uptick in betting against companies that borrowed money from commercial banks instead.

With short selling, hedge funds and other investors make money by wagering that a stock’s price will fall. Borrowing from hedge funds rather than commercial banks can be seen as a sign of distress, as hedge funds tend to charge higher interest rates.

One of the researchers, Debarshi Nandy of the Schulich School of Business at York University in Toronto, told ProPublica that the findings pose an important question of whether hedge funds are using insider information inappropriately.

Full Story: On The Hill: Identifying Suspicious Short Selling, But Not Who’s Behind the Trades.

The US Treasury and the Federal Reserve are Manipulating the Gold Market

Recently we were again witness to three gold market takedowns. The first was engineered just prior to and into gold and silver options expiration. Then prior to the ETF GLD gold option expiry and the last manipulative attack commenced just prior to the dreadful unemployment housing and inventory statistics. This sort of action began in 1988 with the signing of the Executive Order by President Ronald Reagan entitled the President’s Working Group on Financial Markets,” ostensibly created to neutralize events such as the October 1987 collapse of the US stock market. Needless to say, that was not the real intention of the creation of such an order. As it has turned out the Treasury and the N.Y. Fed manipulates markets 24/7 worldwide, and they have a particular interest in the suppression of gold and silver prices; they being the antitheist of the US dollar. It should be noted that there were several times that the US Treasury and the privately owned Fed manipulated gold and silver prior to August 1988. We have found in 50 plus years of tracing this manipulative activity by the US government that it happens over and over again. There is no doubt in our minds that a great deal of what is done by government in gold and silver is done by the commercials, who privy to inside information go along for the ride. In the options operation prices are driven down for Comex options as well as GLD options, so that they expire out of the money and as well the perpetrators can cover some of their short positions. This is not difficult to execute, because other traders see what is going on and they get involved as well making the tasks easier.

This spring Andrew Maguire went public with a scam being pulled by JPMorgan Chase in the rigging of silver futures on the LBMA, an exchange similar to Comex in London. This caper was explained to the CFTC, Commodity Futures Trading Commission, months ahead of it occurring and they chose to do nothing about it. Making matters worse, when confronted with the evidence in public hearings, the CFTC didn’t want to hear about it. Maguire broke the story to others who confronted the CFTC who received lip service. The CFTC was forced to conduct a civil investigation and the Justice Department as well is conducting a criminal investigation, which we believe will go nowhere. Realizing that the CFTC, Justice, Morgan and the government are working together against the public in this matter, we are told by our sources that class action suits are being prepared and that the first one should be filed soon. It is a sad day for Americans when justice has to be forced from a corrupt government. In the end we will win but it will be a painful process.

We have found it interesting that the IMF prohibits members from tying their currencies to gold. All of you out there who believe the IMF’s, SDRs, Special Drawing Rights, will be gold backed are mistaken. This historical operating position was further proven when on August 15, 1971 the US closed the gold window. This was the advice Mr. Nixon received from Paul Volcker, who was an early member of the Trilateral Commission and is an Illuminist. Volcker has also been a leader against the US using gold in its monetary policy. Since 8/15/71 there has been an official war against gold by the elitists behind the curtain. It was that seminal event that essentially changed the future of America and the world. At that time US debt was just short of $500 billion. Today short-term debt is $14 trillion and long-term debt is $105 trillion. The engineer of the failure of the US banking system and the failure of the dollar and the rejection of it is at the feet of Mr. Volcker. What he has done to America at the behest of his Illuminist masters is reprehensible. That was eventually followed by the elimination of Glass Steagall and the looting and the collapse of our financial system. This is the result of the corruption of our system.

Full Story: The US Treasury and the Federal Reserve are Manipulating the Gold Market.

Methane in the Gulf: Toxic Popsicle or Extinction Event?

Tar balls have hit Galveston now, observations from Monday show patches of oil south of Vermillion Bay, Lousiana, half way between New Orleans and Texas, but poor observation conditions due to rough seas may be hampering the identification of oil.

The oil spread models for the Gulf south of Western Louisiana and Eastern Texas show that strong southeast winds have set up a strong westward current that could result in impacts to Texas.

NOAA says there is a 60% chance that Miami Beach will be hit, and although the models show the oil ejecting far out into the North Atlantic on the Gulf Stream, NOAA is saying that it is increasingly unlikely that anything north of North Carolina will be affected.

Full Story: The Rag Blog: Gulf Oil Spill : Toxic Popsicle or Extinction Event?.

No, Mr. Beck, Our Constitution is Not Based on the Book of Deuteronomy

This installment of my series debunking the American history lies told on Glenn Beck is about a study published in 1984 in The American Political Science Review, and how that study is misrepresented to make it appear that our founding documents were based on the Bible, especially the Book of Deuteronomy.

Here’s the transcript of what I said in the video, for those who can’t watch videos at work, or have slow connections:

The study referred to by Beck and Barton was conducted by Donald S. Lutz of the University of Houston. Lutz published his findings in a 1984 article in The American Political Science Review, and misrepresentations of it began appearing a few years later. The first one was in John Eidsmoe’s 1987 book Christianity and the Constitution, which was soon followed by the version most often seen today — the one created by David Barton in his 1988 book The Myth of Separation.

What revisionists like Barton typically do to distort this study is to accurately present some of the charts of the study’s findings, but omit the parts of Lutz’s explanations of these findings that explain what the numbers in the charts actually mean. That way they can just replace the real explanations with whatever they want their followers to think the numbers mean.

Full Story: Talk To Action | No, Mr. Beck, Our Constitution is Not Based on the Book of Deuteronomy.

The Case Against Kissinger Deepens, Continued

Scott Horton — Harper’s Magazine : -

The Case Against Kissinger,” built a strong though circumstantial case connecting Henry Kissinger to a series of assassinations in Chile….

As I noted earlier, Christopher Hitchens’s two-part 2001 article, “The Case Against Kissinger,” built a strong though circumstantial case connecting Henry Kissinger to a series of assassinations in Chile around the time of the overthrow and killing of President Salvador Allende. The evidence has continued to grow since Hitchens’s arguments appeared. On Friday, the release of a taped conversation between Kissinger and President Richard M. Nixon added more. Jeff Stein reports in the Washington Post’s Spytalk blog:

President Richard M. Nixon and his national security adviser, Henry A. Kissinger, joked that an “incompetent” CIA had struggled to successfully carry out an assassination in Chile, newly available Oval Office tapes reveal. At the time, in 1971, Nixon and Kissinger were working to undermine the socialist administration of Chilean President Salvador Allende, who would die during a U.S.-backed military coup two years later. One of the key figures to stand in the way of Chilean generals plotting to overthrow Allende was the Chilean army commander-in-chief, Rene Schneider, who was killed during a botched kidnapping attempt by military right-wingers in 1970.

The new tapes won’t end the argument, but they add persuasive evidence that the CIA was at least trying to eliminate Schneider, and perhaps with the connivance of Nixon and Kissinger. The key exchange between the president and his national security adviser occurred on June 11, 1971. They were discussing another assassination in Chile, this time of one of Allende’s political adversaries, former Christian Democratic party interior minister Edmundo Pérez Zujovic, who was murdered on June 8, 1971, by an extreme leftist group.

Here’s a transcript of the tape:

Full Story: The Case Against Kissinger Deepens, Continued—By Scott Horton (Harper’s Magazine).

When the Police Control the Press

The Serbian soldier blocking the bridge cradled his AK-47 assault rifle as he delivered a ruling that brooked no argument: You cannot cross the river. Not today.

We implored him to reconsider. We are journalists. We’ve driven all the way from Belgrade. Here are our credentials.

No. This road is closed.

Zashto? (Why?)

Ne! (No.)

We never made it to Zvornik, the Bosnian town just across the river. When it came to press access, the final word belonged to the men with guns. As we later learned, the Serbs had plenty to hide that spring day about their activities in eastern Bosnia.

I was reminded of that instant — admittedly a very different set of circumstances — when we received a call last week at ProPublica from Lance Rosenfield, a freelance photographer we had hired to work in Texas City, Texas, on stories about BP’s refinery there.

Full Story: On The Hill: When the Police Control the Press.

Hidden Truths BP and The White House are Hiding from the American Public

When Aldous Huxley put a spin on a Gospel quote and wrote, “Ye shall know the truth and the truth shall make you mad,” he could not have better had in mind the Obama administration, British Petroleum and our elected officials in their handling the oil catastrophe in the Gulf. There is plenty for Americans and the global citizenry to be fuming about, incensed at the trails of deception, lies and erroneous propaganda and rhetoric issuing from our corporate and government leadership.

Investigative journalist and author Michael Ruppert knows this story all too well. For the past decade he has been researching and writing on peak oil and its contribution to the future collapse of the nation’s economy and the American of life. In 1998, he founded From The Wilderness, a newsletter and website devoted to disseminating reports and analyses about government corruption and cover-ups, the CIA’s narcotics operations–which he brought to light in the mid-1970s during his stint as a narcotics investigator for the LAPD–and the politics and science of peak oil and the energy industry. Among Michael’s most recent books are The Presidential Energy Policy and Confronting Collapse: The Crisis of Energy and Money in a Post Peak Oil World, both released in 2009.

Last week on a live radio broadcast over the Progressive Radio Network, Ruppert presented his overview of the Deep Water Horizon oil spill crisis, with some new insights gleaned from his investigations that are deeply disturbing.

Full Story: OpEdNews – Article: Hidden Truths BP and The White House are Hiding from the American Public.

Reassembling Amercia’s Democracy

by Jim Hightower :

On the Fourth of July, we celebrated Jefferson, Franklin, Adams, Madison and all the other great men who created our democracy, right?

Not exactly. The Founders did create the framework for a democratic republic, but they didn’t create much democracy. Indeed, in America’s first presidential election, only 4 percent of the people were even eligible to vote.

The Founders created the possibility for democracy, but it took the struggle (often bloody and always hard) of ordinary people over the years to create the substance. In some decades, we’ve made advances; in others, we’ve fallen back — including in the past three decades, when the power of America’s workaday majority has steadily been usurped by corporate elites. So now, We the People must put America back on its historic path toward economic and political democracy.

“Fine,” you might say, “but how? I’m just one person. What can I do?”

Full Story: Reassembling Amercia’s Democracy by Jim Hightower on Creators.com – A Syndicate Of Talent.

BP, Governments Downplay Public Health Risk From Oil and Dispersants (PHOTOS)

When Ryan Heffernan, a volunteer with Emerald Coastkeeper, noticed a bag of oily debris floating off in Santa Rosa Sound, she ran up to BP’s HazMat-trained workers to ask if they would retrieve it.

“No, ma’am,” one replied politely. “We can’t go in the ocean. It’s contaminated.”

Ryan waded in and retrieved the bag. That was Wednesday, June 23, the first day visible oil hit Pensacola Beach. Ryan had been swimming off the beach the day before, as she said, “to get in my last swim before the oil hit.” The trouble is that not all of the oil coming ashore is visible. Dispersed oil – tiny bubbles of oil encased in chemical dispersants – are in the water column. On Thursday Ryan was treated at a local doctor’s office for skin rash on her legs.

Three days later on Pensacola Beach, I watched BP’s HazMat-trained workers shovel surface oiled sand and oily debris into bags early in the morning. The workers followed the waterline like shorebirds, scurrying up the beach in front of breaking waves and moving back down with receding waters.

Full Story: Riki Ott: BP, Governments Downplay Public Health Risk From Oil and Dispersants (PHOTOS).

Oil containment effort facing 2 key moments

The battle to contain BP’s massive Deepwater Horizon oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico is approaching two critical junctures in coming days that could affect how the months-long catastrophe ends.

The first will happen for sure: the connection of a third ship to the jury-rigged containment system through which BP has been capturing about 24,000 barrels of oil per day since early June. That may take place as soon as this weekend, depending on how rough the seas are, and it would raise the amount of oil that BP can collect from the well to as much as 53,000 barrels per day. That’s 88 percent of the 60,000 barrels per day that the government says is the current best guess of the maximum amount that’s gushing from the well.

The second may not happen: replacing the “top hat” component of that containment system with a new cap that would fit more snugly but whose installation would require that the well be uncapped for as long as 10 days, allowing tens of thousands of additional barrels of crude to spew into the Gulf.

Full Story: Oil containment effort facing 2 key moments | McClatchy.

Can Your Cell Phone Put You in a Cell Block?

Court to decide if cops need warrant to track you by cellphone.

Authorities say they have evidence that Luis Soto was near a bank that was robbed in Berlin, Conn. Was there an eyewitness? No.

Soto was reportedly betrayed by his cell phone. Federal authorities sought reams of records from phone companies. They said the data — which lists which cell towers handled certain calls — revealed that Soto was not only close to the bank, but he was close to other suspects in the robbery.

Should law enforcement agencies be able to obtain this sort of information without a warrant? That’s a question that will soon be debated in a U.S. District Court in Connecticut.

Defense lawyers and advocacy groups like the American Civil Liberties Union and the Electronic Frontier Foundation say the way the government obtained the cell information constitutes an unreasonable search and seizure.

Full Story: Law.com – Can Your Cell Phone Put You in a Cell Block?.

CBO says climate bill would cut deficit by $19B

Cap-and-trade plan of selling carbon credits is stalled in Senate

Congressional budget experts say a climate and energy bill now stalled in the Senate would reduce the federal deficit by about $19 billion over the next decade.

The report by the nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office was the second positive analysis of the bill by a government agency in a month, but is likely to carry more weight than a similar report issued by the Environmental Protection Agency. The CBO is the entity responsible for providing Congress with nonpartisan analyses of economic and budget issues, and lawmakers rely on it for guidance.

The CBO report was immediately hailed by the bill’s sponsors, who are struggling to move the climate measure through a divided Congress. Lawmakers have quietly begun considering a more modest approach that would target the electricity sector, in case the more sweeping measure fails.

Full Story: CBO says climate bill would cut deficit by $19B – Politics – Capitol Hill – msnbc.com.

MN GOP Gov. Candidate’s Idea For Economic Growth: Cut The Minimum Wage Of Bartenders And Waiters

With the tough economy continuing to hit individuals, families, and businesses nationwide, progressive legislators have sought to protect vital public investment in the nation’s communities, while many conservative lawmakers have turned to slashing social support for the most vulnerable Americans.

Minnesota GOP candidate for governor Tom Emmer falls in the second camp. Speaking to reporters yesterday, Emmer proposed cutting the minimum wage for service workers who receive tips, such as bartenders and waiters. In order to justify the cut, Emmer said that some of these employees earn “over $100,000 a year,” and even make more than the people who employ them:

Tom Emmer, the GOP-endorsed candidate for governor, told reporters at the Eagle Street Grille in St. Paul on Monday that the minimum wage for service workers who earn tips should be cut. Some waiters and bartenders, he noted, can earn as much as $100,000 a year, which he said is unfair to the employers that hire them.

Full Story: Think Progress » MN GOP Gov. Candidate’s Idea For Economic Growth: Cut The Minimum Wage Of Bartenders And Waiters.

Head Of ‘World’s Largest Interactive Christian Website’ Calls Out Beck’s ‘Deception’ About His Mormonism

Glenn Beck often speaks about faith on his radio show and Fox News program, but he almost never mentions his own faith — Mormonism. Beck’s audience largely consists of conservative Christians, many of whom consider Mormonism to be a “cult.” So as to not alienate his followers, Beck obscures his religion, and focuses instead on broad themes common to many Christian faiths.

But out of view of his general audience, Beck readily explains that the Church of Latter-Day Saints made him who he is today. “I was baptized on a Sunday, and on Monday an agent called me out of the blue,” Beck said in a Mormon promotional video. And the Church has rewarded Beck. For example, the Mormon-affiliated LDSTravel.com website is currently promoting Beck’s 8/28 rally in Washington, D.C., offering travelers an entire day as part of a seven day tour of the East Coast.

Today, Bill Keller, the “leader of the world’s largest interactive Christian website” — an internet ministry with over 2.4 million subscribers — is attempting to expose Beck’s “deception” about his faith, explaining Beck “lies to people by stating he is a Christian”

Full Story: Think Progress » Head Of ‘World’s Largest Interactive Christian Website’ Calls Out Beck’s ‘Deception’ About His Mormonism.

Jindal Signs ‘Gun-In-Church’ Bill, Allowing Congregants To Bring Concealed Weapons To Worship

Yesterday, Louisiana Gov. Bobby Jindal (R) signed a bill into law that will allow people to bring concealed weapons into houses of worship. The Times-Picayune reports on the bill:

[State Rep. Henry] Burns’ bill would authorize persons who qualified to carry concealed weapons having passed the training and background checks to bring them to churches, mosques, synagogues or other houses of worship as part of a security force.

The pastor or head of the religious institution must announce verbally or in weekly newsletters or bulletins that there will be individuals armed on the property as members of he security force. Those chosen have to undergo eight hours of tactical training each year. [...]

The bill also allows a house of worship to hire off-duty police or security guards to protect congregants.

Full Story: Think Progress » Jindal Signs ‘Gun-In-Church’ Bill, Allowing Congregants To Bring Concealed Weapons To Worship.

OPS; Petulant children with their toys

Insurer revoked leukemia patient’s coverage because it claimed she underpaid her premium by a penny.

One of the worst abuses of the private health insurance industry is the practice of denying claims to pay for necessary care or revoking the coverage of policyholders for frivolous reasons. The Colorado Springs Gazette reports that a leukemia patient — a single mother of two teenage boys — had her coverage revoked after her penny-pinching insurance company, Discover Benefits, claimed that she had underpaid her premium:

La Rosa Carrington has more than enough to worry about. She’s a single mother with two teenage daughters, she’s fighting a type of leukemia that requires five days of chemo a month for four months, and she lost her job in May. So the last thing she needed was news that her health insurance benefits would be terminated because she hadn’t paid her premium in full. The shortfall? One penny. [...]

Under the 2009 American Recovery and Reinvestment Act, those who meet the eligibility requirements pay just 35 percent of the full COBRA premium. Because Carrington had not yet received a bill showing what her payment would be with the discount, she whipped out a calculator, figured out that she owed $165.15 a month and sent a check for that amount to Discovery Benefits.

Full Story: Think Progress » Insurer revoked leukemia patient’s coverage because it claimed she underpaid her premium by a penny..

CNN Caves To Right Wing Neocons By Firing Its Mideast Reporter Octavia Nasr

On Sunday, Octavia Nasr — CNN’s Senior Editor of Mideast Affairs — acknowledged the death of Lebanon’s Grand Ayatollah Mohammed Hussein Fadlallah by tweeting:

Sad to hear of the passing of Sayyed Mohammad Hussein Fadlallah.. One of Hezbollah’s giants I respect a lot..

Fadlallah was well known for a number of relatively liberal views, such as his support for women’s rights and fatwas against the brutal practices of female circumcision and honor killings. But Nasr’s comment was enough to spark fierce outrage from the various precincts of the neocon blog/twittersphere, who went after Nasr for her egregious failure to reduce Fadlallah to an anti-Israel, anti-American terrorist bogeyman.

Responding to the uproar, Nasr wrote, “It was an error of judgment for me to write such a simplistic comment and I’m sorry because it conveyed that I supported Fadlallah’s life’s work. That’s not the case at all”:

Full Story: Think Progress » CNN Caves To Right Wing Neocons By Firing Its Mideast Reporter Octavia Nasr.

Protecting Oil Companies? BP Investigation Blocked

Video:

Before the 4th of July weekend, there was unreported maneuver in the Senate designed to protect BP and the federal government from liability in the Gulf disaster.

Senate Democrats asked unanimous consent to pass legislation that would give the BP Oil Spill Commission the subpoena power it needs to do its job.

The US House of Representatives voted 420 to 1 to give the presidential commission investigating the BP oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico full subpoena power. The Senate blocked it.

Full Story: Protecting Oil Companies? BP Investigation Blocked | Global Research TV.

Big Oil Starts Running TV Ads In 10 States Attacking ‘Taxes’ On Petroleum In Energy Bill

The big Washington trade group representing BP and the major oil companies says it has begun paying for TV ads in 10 states that attack the introduction of “new taxes” on the petroleum industry as part of comprehensive energy legislation.

The problem: the energy and climate bill currently before the Senate increases no taxes, and in fact, will save Americans money on their energy bills, according to a spokeswoman for one of the lawmakers who authored the legislation.

The American Petroleum Institute (API) announced Tuesday that it has begun running a series of 15- and 30-second television spots in 10 states during the month of July. They are running in Colorado, Michigan, North Carolina, North Dakota, Pennsylvania, Virginia, Maine, Missouri, Ohio and West Virginia, API says.

Full Story: On The Hill: Big Oil Starts Running TV Ads In 10 States Attacking ‘Taxes’ On Petroleum In Energy Bill.

For Claims of Bodily Injury, No Payments from BP Yet

BP has long maintained that it will pay all “legitimate” claims for damage caused by the gusher in the Gulf of Mexico. But company data shows that while it has written checks for roughly half of the overall claims it has received — most of which address property damage and the loss of income — it has not made payments on any of the more than 1,100 claims that have been filed for damages caused by “bodily injury.”

As of Tuesday, BP’s statistics showed a total of 1,105 claims for compensation for bodily injury, including 298 claims for respiratory ailments, 275 claims for anxiety or stress, and 261 claims for nausea. These claims have not received any of nearly $149 million in compensation that the company has paid out to date.

BP’s inaction on bodily injury claims, the only category in which all claims remain unpaid, suggests that the company is still discussing its approach to claims that could establish its liability for illness and injury.

Full Story: On The Hill: For Claims of Bodily Injury, No Payments from BP Yet.

The Arrogant David Brooks Tells Readers That Stimulus Will Risk National Insolvency

David Brooks has decided to jump into the debate over stimulus with both feet. In a column in which he warns against arrogance he tells readers that additional stimulus would: “risk national insolvency on the basis of a model.”

Mr. Brooks doesn’t tell readers how he has determined that further stimulus carries this risk. He doesn’t explain how raising the country’s debt to GDP ratio by 4-8 percentage points over the next few few years would jeopardize the creditworthiness of the U.S. government. This is certainly a rather strong assertion, given that even with this additional indebtedness, the debt to GDP ratio in the United States would still be far lower than it had been at prior points in its history.

Even after a decade of accumulating debt at a rapid pace, the U.S. would still face a lower debt burden than countries like Italy do today. Italy is currently able to borrow in financial markets at very low interest rates. Projections for 2020 show that the debt burden of the United States would still be less than half of the current debt burden of Japan, which still pays less than 2.0 percent interest on its long-term debt.

Full Story: The Arrogant David Brooks Tells Readers That Stimulus Will Risk National Insolvency | Beat the Press.

Gulf of Mexico awash with 27,000 abandoned wells

More than 27,000 abandoned oil and gas wells lurk in the hard rock beneath the Gulf of Mexico, an environmental minefield that has been ignored for decades. No one – not industry, not government – is checking to see if they are leaking, an Associated Press investigation shows.

The oldest of these wells were abandoned in the late 1940s, raising the prospect that many deteriorating sealing jobs are already failing.

The AP investigation uncovered particular concern with 3500 of the neglected wells – those characterised in federal government records as “temporarily abandoned”.

Full Story: Gulf of Mexico awash with 27,000 abandoned wells – report – World – NZ Herald News.

Censorship and cover-up in the Gulf oil disaster

The Obama administration has intensified its cover-up of the BP oil disaster.

On July 1 it issued an order barring the public and the news media from coming within 65 feet of clean-up operations without permission from the Coast Guard. The transparent aim of the order, which purports to protect the safety of clean-up workers, is to prevent the population from viewing the devastation wrought by the BP oil blowout.

The gag order states that that anyone not authorized by the Coast Guard “must not come within 20 meters [65 feet] of booming operations, boom, or oil spill response operations under penalty of law.” The wording—“oil spill response operations”—could be construed as covering the entire affected region, which stretches from the Mississippi Delta to the Florida Panhandle.

Journalists who “willfully” defy the White House order could be prosecuted as Class D felons and face up to five years in prison and a $40,000 fine. Exceptions to the ban will be considered on a case-by-case basis by the Coast Guard captain of the Port of New Orleans.

Full Story: Censorship and cover-up in the Gulf oil disaster.

Inherited wealth shouldn’t get a free pass on taxes

Repeal of the estate tax imposes significant costs on the taxpaying public and promotes concentrations of wealth that harm our democracy.

Dan Duncan is reportedly the first billionaire to die during the one year since 1916 in which there is no estate tax in place. His heirs have hit the tax-free jackpot.

Duncan is the poster child for opponents of the estate tax. Described by the New York Times as a “soft-spoken farm boy who started with $10,000 and two propane trucks,” he grew his business until he became the 74th wealthiest person in the world.

With an estimated net worth of $9 billion, Duncan embodies the rags-to-riches story that Americans love. Even his choice of bequests — leaving his money to his family and his favorite charities — makes him seem “just like us.” Who better to enjoy Congress’ largesse?

Full Story: Inherited wealth shouldn’t get a free pass on taxes – latimes.com.

Republicans committed to sabotaging recovery, kill the economy

Conservatives Vote to Torpedo Our Economy

Congress is now home for the July 4 holiday without extending unemployment benefits. The argument of those conservatives who filibustered the legislation is that it is more important to rein in federal deficits than it is to maintain the meager incomes of the unemployed so that they can remain part of America’s great consumer base and help employed Americans keep their own jobs.

Yet today’s new data from the Bureau of Labor Statistics shows that private-sector hiring continues at a tepid pace. Over the past three months, the economy has added an average of 119,000 private-sector jobs each month. At this pace, it will take the economy 66.4 months, or 5.5 years, to re-create all jobs lost (assuming 7.9 million deficit).

Why are these opponents of extended unemployment benefits willing to risk a double-dip recession? One reason is politics. Conservatives think if President Barack Obama is for something then they must be against it. While stopping aid to the unemployed may indeed end up helping conservatives rally their base in November, this does not seem to be the “easy” vote-getting strategy for independent voters who will be key to ultimate electoral success.

Full Story: Economic Mismanagement.

The real oil spill exposed.

Thom Hartmann talks with John Wathen

..”no one has ever tried to stop a flow like this once it’s started…”

Republicans Incite Class Warfare—Within the Middle Class

Matthew Rothschild,

The Republicans have found a new scapegoat for the economy, in addition to illegal immigrants.

The new scapegoat is public sector workers.

Unwilling to blame Bush for the budget deficit, unable to blame Wall Street for wrecking the economy, and incapable of blaming a lack of regulation or capitalism itself for the morass we’re in, Republicans are pointing their fingers now at public sector workers.

The teachers, police officers, fire fighters, and other government employees are just making too much money, the Republicans say, regardless of the fact that public sector workers in state after state have been laid off or put on unpaid furloughs.

Full Story: Republicans Incite Class Warfare—Within the Middle Class | The Progressive.

A Damning New Report on George W. Bush

George W. Bush is among the five least accomplished U.S. presidents, according to a new survey by the U.S.’s top 238 leading presidential scholars. They have been polled by the Siena College Research Institute’s (SRI) annually for the last 28 years. While president Franklin Delano Roosevelt, who led the country from 1933 until his death in 1945, ranked first in overall accomplishments, former President Bush ranked worst among modern presidents –and the fifth worst in history.

According to the Survey of U.S. Presidents the top five, including Franklin D. Roosevelt, are Theodore Roosevelt, Abraham Lincoln, George Washington and Thomas Jefferson.

The presidential scholars ranked the U.S. Presidents on six personal attributes (background, imagination, integrity, intelligence, luck and willingness to take risks); five forms of ability (compromising, executive, leadership, communication and overall abilities); and eight areas of accomplishment including domestic affairs, economic, working with Congress and their party, appointing supreme court justices and members of the executive branch, avoiding mistakes and foreign policy.

Full Story: A Damning New Report on George W. Bush | CommonDreams.org.

Republicans: a party of unemployment

Dean Baker:

It may seem bad taste to accuse Republicans of wanting a rise in unemployment but their actions leave no other explanation

From now until 2 November, the Republican party will be the party of unemployment. The logic is straightforward: the more people who are unemployed on election day, the better the prospects for Republicans in the fall election. They expect, with good cause, that voters will hold the Democrats responsible for the state of the economy. Therefore, anything that the Republicans can do to make the economy worse between now and then will help their election prospects.

While it may be bad taste to accuse a major national political party of deliberately wanting to throw people out of jobs, there is no other plausible explanation for the Republicans’ behaviour. They have balked at supporting nearly every bill that had any serious hope of creating or keeping jobs, most recently filibustering on bills that provided aid to state and local governments and extending unemployment benefits. The result of the Republicans’ actions, unless they are reversed quickly, is that hundreds of thousands more workers will be thrown out of work by the mid-terms.

The story is straightforward. Nearly every state and local government across the country is looking at large budget shortfalls for their 2011 fiscal years, most of which begin on 1 July 2010. Since they are generally required by state constitutions or local charters to balance their budgets, they will have no choice except to raise taxes and/or make large cutbacks and lay off workers to bring spending and revenue into line

Full Story: Republicans: a party of unemployment | Dean Baker | Comment is free | guardian.co.uk.

The More CEOs Make, The Worse They Treat Workers, Says A New Study

CEO pay has been blasted for increasing risk to the economy, being out of proportion to ordinary wages and being unrelated to actual company performance. And, according to a new study, a high salary may actually make your company’s CEO meaner. (Hat tip to Harvard Business Review)

In the study’s white paper, “When Executives Rake in Millions: Meanness in Organizations,” professors from Harvard, Rice and the University of Utah argue that rising income inequality between executives and ordinary workers results in “power asymmetries in the workplace such that top executives come to view lower level workers as dispensable objects not worthy of human dignity.”

To test this claim, the authors examined employee data from Kinder, Lydenberg, Domini & Co. Comparing employee complaint information against compensation figures, the authors found that the higher a firm’s executive pay, the higher its overall “meanness” score. (Firms were given points if they have been fined for mistreating employees and they had points taken away if they have programs that benefit employees such profit-sharing agreements.)

Full Story: The More CEOs Make, The Worse They Treat Workers, Says A New Study.

BP Media Clampdown: Journalists Now Face Possibility of Fines, Prison Time

A month ago, National Incident Commander Thad Allen issued an order granting the media “uninhibited access” to the areas affected by the Deepwater Horizon oil spill. It was routinely and often brazenly ignored.

Thirty days later, it should be said that the order essentially has no real-world meaning at all. Here’s Daniel Tencer at Raw Story:

Journalists who come too close to oil spill clean-up efforts without permission could find themselves facing a $40,000 fine and even one to five years in prison under a new rule instituted by the Coast Guard late last week.

It’s a move that outraged observers have decried as an attack on First Amendment rights. And CNN’s Anderson Cooper describes the new rules as making it “very easy to hide incompetence or failure.”

The Coast Guard order states that “vessels must not come within 20 meters [65 feet] of booming operations, boom, or oil spill response operations under penalty of law.”

Full Story: BP Media Clampdown: Journalists Now Face Possibility of Fines, Prison Time.

Thousands of Soldiers Unfit for War Duty

More than 13,000 active-duty Army soldiers — the equivalent of four combat brigades — are sidelined as unfit for war because of injury, illness, or mental stress.

In an unmistakable sign that the Army is struggling with exhaustion after nine years of fighting, combat commanders whose units are headed to Afghanistan increasingly choose to leave behind soldiers who can no longer perform, putting additional strain on those who still can.

The growing pool of “non-deployable” soldiers make up roughly 10 percent of the 116,423 active-duty soldiers currently in Iraq and Afghanistan. Thousands more Army reservists and National Guard soldiers are also considered unfit to deploy, a growing burden on an Army that has sworn to care for them as long as needed.

Full Story: Thousands of Soldiers Unfit for War Duty.

10 Surprisingly Recession-Proof Industries

It’s always tricky to call an industry “recession-proof” but, though it may sound surprising, there are a handful of industries that are actually growing during the downturn.

But as we wait patiently for things to improve, consumption patterns look a little different. Spending is down on funerals and education,, but is rising on non-necessities like gum, tattoos and– pet pampering? Perhaps mounting frustrations and anxieties about the economy have shown a new side of human nature.

Check out some of the most surprising industries that are not only surviving, but thriving during the current economic lull.

Full Story: 10 Surprisingly Recession-Proof Industries (PHOTOS).

Reid Republishes Angle’s Old Website, Defying Cease And Desist Order

Less than 24 hours after removing a version of Sharron Angle’s original unvarnished campaign website, Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-Nev.) is defying a cease and desist order from his Tea Party opponent and republishing the site.

The Nevada Democrat’s re-election campaign unveiled (for the second time) its website The Real Sharron Angle on Tuesday afternoon. The site is basically the same platform Angle used when running in the Nevada Republican primary, though Reid’s staff tinkered with its presentation to ensure it could withstand a legal challenge from the Angle campaign.

The move is a show of defiance from the Majority Leader. Hours after launching her new website — in which many of her more provocative positions have been scrubbed — Angle filed a legal objection to Reid’s publishing of her old campaign website material, claiming misuse of copyrighted materials. The Tea Party favorite was able to win temporary relief, with Reid agreeing to pull down the old site over the July 4th weekend. But the Senate Majority Leader’s legal team clearly feels there is no standing for Angle’s objections. At the very least, the advantages of highlighting Angle’s now- former positions and statements outweighs the potential cost in legal fees from the back-and-forth sparring over copyright law.

Full Story: Reid Republishes Angle’s Old Website, Defying Cease And Desist Order.

America’s Deadliest Sweetener Betrays Millions, Then Hoodwinks You With Name Change

The Deceptive Marketing of Aspartame

Aspartame is the most controversial food additive in history, and its approval for use in food was the most contested in FDA history. In the end, the artificial sweetener was approved, not on scientific grounds, but rather because of strong political and financial pressure. After all, aspartame was previously listed by the Pentagon as a biochemical warfare agent!

It’s hard to believe such a chemical would be allowed into the food supply, but it was, and it has been wreaking silent havoc with people’s health for the past 30 years.

The truth is, it should never have been released onto the market, and allowing it to remain in the food chain is seriously hurting people — no matter how many times you rebrand it under fancy new names.

Full Story: Dr. Joseph Mercola: America’s Deadliest Sweetener Betrays Millions, Then Hoodwinks You With Name Change.

Calls to Suicide Hot Lines Surge as Stress of Joblessness Increases

In one of the darkest tallies of the nation’s still-sputtering recession, experts say financial desperation has played a significant role in increased calls to suicide-prevention hot lines — and likely has led to increased suicide rates.

While government statistics on suicides often lag by two or three years, experts say the easier-to-track calls to hot lines have grown significantly. The National Suicide Prevention Lifeline, which operates 24-hour crisis help lines around the country, reported an increase of 18 percent from January to May this year. The rates have fluctuated wildly, from 13,424 in January 2007 to a peak of 59,500 two months ago.

Dr. John Draper, director of the National Suicide Prevention Lifeline, said it’s hard to tell whether the increased pace reflects more people needing help, or whether it’s the effects of media attention on the problem and increased outreach by crisis counselors.

Full Story: Calls to Suicide Hot Lines Surge as Stress of Joblessness Increases.

Average Homeowner In Obama Foreclosure Program Deeply Underwater, Drawing Calls From GOP To Cut Off Help

The average beneficiary of the Obama administration’s flagship homeowner-assistance program owes their mortgage lender more than $1.50 for every dollar their home is worth, which means they fall into the stratum of homeowners most likely to simply walk away from their mortgages, recent government data show.

This little-noticed statistic was disclosed in a June 24 report by the Government Accountability Office. Citing government data collected through mid-April, the report found that even homeowners who receive lower monthly payments through the administration’s Home Affordable Modification Program are still struggling “under water,” meaning they owe more on their mortgages than their homes are worth.

A recent study by Federal Reserve economists shows that underwater homeowners are, not surprisingly, much more likely to default on their mortgages. Moreover, borrowers who are deeply underwater — like those in HAMP, who average negative 50 percent home equity — are far more likely to default willingly; that is, to give up on trying to overcome their growing mountains of debt, and just stop paying at all.

Full Story: Average Homeowner In Obama Foreclosure Program Deeply Underwater, Drawing Calls From GOP To Cut Off Help.

Scientists Beg For A Chance To Take Basic Measurements

A group of independent scientists, frustrated and dumbfounded by the continued lack of the most basic data about the 77-day-old BP oil disaster, has put together a crash project intended to definitively measure how much oil has spilled and where and how it is spreading throughout the waters of the Gulf of Mexico.

An all-star team of top oceanographers, chemists, engineers and other scientists could be ready to head out to the well site on two fully-equipped research vessels on about a week’s notice. But they need to get the go-ahead — and about $8.4 million — from BP or the federal government or both. And that does not appear imminent.

The test is designed to provide responders to future deep-sea oil catastrophes with valuable information. But, to be blunt, it would also fill an enormous gap in the response to this one.

Full Story: Gulf Oil Spill: Scientists Beg For A Chance To Take Basic Measurements.

Bad news for Obama: Conservative Justice Kennedy tells pals he’s in no rush to leave Supreme Court

President Obama may get liberal Elena Kagan on the Supreme Court, but conservative swing-voter Anthony Kennedy says he’s not going anywhere anytime soon.

Justice Kennedy, who turns 74 this month, has told relatives and friends he plans to stay on the high court for at least three more years – through the end of Obama’s first term, sources said.

That means Kennedy will be around to provide a fifth vote for the court’s conservative bloc through the 2012 presidential election. If Obama loses, Kennedy could retire and expect a Republican President to choose a conservative justice.

Full Story: Bad news for Obama: Conservative Justice Kennedy tells pals he’s in no rush to leave Supreme Court.

US taxpayers’ Afghan aid money buys rich Afghans’ Dubai villas

You already might have heard that it costs the United States $1 million for each solider per year in Afghanistan, to cover the cost of the soldiers’ benefits, troop transports and other material. What you might not have heard is that your hard earned taxpayer dollars are also being used to buy well-connected Afghans posh villas in Dubai.

Der Spiegel remarks curtly, “Amid concerns that the money could be the result of corruption, American politicians have temporarily cut off aid to the Afghan government.” The German daily adds:

…Huge amounts of money [are] regularly being secreted out of Afghanistan by plane in boxes and suitcases. According to some estimates, since 2007, at least $3 billion (€2.4 billion) in cash has left the country in this way. The preferred destination for these funds is Dubai, the tax haven in the Persian Gulf. And, given the fact that Afghanistan’s total GDP amounts to the equivalent of $13.5 billion, there is no way that the funds involved in this exodus are merely the proceeds of legal business transactions…

Full Story: US taxpayers’ Afghan aid money buys rich Afghans’ Dubai villas | Raw Story.

Soldier who leaked Iraq shootings video faces 52 years

Army intel analyst charged over leak of Iraq shootings video

An American soldier suspected of leaking video footage of a US Apache helicopter strike in Baghdad that killed two employees of the Reuters news agency has been charged, the military said on Tuesday.

Private First Class Bradley E. Manning, held in a military jail in Kuwait since last month in connection with the July 2007 attack, faces two charges of misconduct, said a statement released by the US army in Baghdad.

The first charge, is for violating army regulations by “transferring classified data onto his personal computer and adding unauthorized software to a classified computer system,” the statement said.

Full Story: Army intel analyst charged over leak of Iraq shootings video | Raw Story.

Judge refuses to jail activist who hung banner in Senate building, over objection of US Attorney

US Attorney wanted jail sentence of 40 days, three years suspended sentence

Environmentalist Ted Glick narrowly escaped a jail sentence today for misdemeanor convictions related to hanging banners in the atrium of the Hart Senate Office Building (pictured at right).

“I’m overwhelmingly surprised,” Glick told Raw Story. “I fully expected to go to jail.”

The 60 year-old Bloomfield, NJ resident was convicted May 13 of two misdemeanors—disorderly conduct and unlawfully assembling on Capitol Grounds. He was facing up to three years in prison in today’s sentencing for unfurling two banners saying “Green Jobs Now” and “Get to Work” from the Hart Senate Office Building’s 7th floor into the atrium on Sept. 8, 2009, the day the Senate returned from its summer recess.

Full Story: Judge refuses to jail activist who hung banner in Senate building, over objection of US Attorney | Raw Story.

Police: Conn. priest stole $1M for male escorts

A Roman Catholic priest in Connecticut has been arrested on charges he stole $1.3 million in church money over seven years to use for male escorts, expensive clothing, and luxury hotels and restaurants.

Waterbury police say the 64-year-old Rev. Kevin J. Gray was charged Tuesday with first-degree larceny. Gray is the former pastor at Sacred Heart/Sagrado Corazon Parish in Waterbury.

The Hartford Archdiocese last month asked police to investigate after it discovered during a financial review that he might have taken more than a million dollars for personal use.

Full Story: Police: Conn. priest stole $1M for male escorts | Raw Story.

Arkansas cop killers were ‘sovereign citizens,’ right-wing extremists who believe they are exempt from the law.

In late May, a father-son pair of so-called “sovereign citizens” shot and killed two police officers in West Memphis, Arkansas after being pulled over on a routine traffic stop. Militia-like “sovereign citizens” take right-wing “tenther” beliefs to their logical extreme, declaring themselves exempt from federal law and from paying taxes, and believing they “don’t have to answer to any government authority.” The FBI lists the movement as a “domestic terror threat,” and as NBC Nightly News reported last night, the West Memphis shooting highlights that this growing anti-government movement may become violent:

Full Story: Think Progress » Arkansas cop killers were ‘sovereign citizens,’ right-wing extremists who believe they are exempt from the law..

Dan Senor Says It’s ‘Legitimate’ To Argue That The Iraq War Has Not Made The U.S. Safer

Prominent conservatives and Republicans in Congress have been attacking RNC chair Michael Steele and calling for his ouster after Steele’s recent comments that the war in Afghanistan cannot be won. Today on MSNBC’s Morning Joe, conservative Pat Buchanan complained about the right’s reaction. “What bothers me is the effort here I think to force a position on the Republican Party before they’ve gone through their primary process,” Buchanan said, and addressed former Iraq Coalition Provisional Authority spokesman Dan Senor about the foolish right-wing charge to wage war in Iraq:

BUCHANAN: What I’m saying is, don’t start purging a guy because he said something different. [...] You guys were wrong on Iraq and you got us into that. … You had all that intel on WMD and got us into an unnecessary war.

Time’s Mark Halperin came to Senor’s defense, asking, “Why aren’t you asking him if we’re safer with Saddam Hussein gone?” “Yeah, thank you, Mark,” Senor said, then asking Buchanan, “Would we have been safer if Saddam Hussein were in power?” Surprisingly, when Buchanan offered a suggestion as to why the U.S. is perhaps not safer, Senor called his argument “legitimate”:

Full Story: Think Progress » Dan Senor Says It’s ‘Legitimate’ To Argue That The Iraq War Has Not Made The U.S. Safer.

Rove Admits His ‘Shadow RNC’ Attack Group Functions Largely Because Of The Citizens United Decision

Given the weak leadership of Republican National Committee Chairman Michael Steele, former Bush White House adviser Karl Rove launched a “shadow RNC” in April called American Crossroads, vowing to spend $50 million to influence this Fall’s election. After an embarrassing first month of fundraising, Crossroads raised $8.5 million in June, “from an even split of individuals and corporations.”

On Fox News today, Rove directly credited his group’s success to the Supreme Court’s Citizens United decision, which overturned the decades-old ban on corporate money in politics:

HOST: Some suggest that the money that goes to American Crossroads might otherwise go to an organization like the RNC.

ROVE: Well that’s not correct, because American Crossroads is collecting money in excess of the individual contribution limits the RNC has allowed to give. What we’ve essentially said, is if you’ve maxed out the to senatorial committee, the congressional committee or the RNC and would like to do more, under the Citizens United decisions, you can give money to the American Crossroads 527, or Crossroads GPS, so we’re not tapping the people who — if you’ve giving to American Crossroads, you’re fully capable, in all likelihood, of giving the maximum to one of the national committee organizations.

Watch it (beginning 2:00):

Full Story: Think Progress » Rove Admits His ‘Shadow RNC’ Attack Group Functions Largely Because Of The Citizens United Decision.

Why We Must Reduce Military Spending

Rep. Barney Frank:

As members of opposing political parties, we disagree on a number of important issues. But we must not allow honest disagreement over some issues to interfere with our ability to work together when we do agree.

By far the single most important of these is our current initiative to include substantial reductions in the projected level of American military spending as part of future deficit reduction efforts. For decades, the subject of military expenditures has been glaringly absent from public debate. Yet the Pentagon budget for 2010 is $693 billion — more than all other discretionary spending programs combined. Even subtracting the cost of the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, military spending still amounts to over 42% of total spending.

It is irrefutably clear to us that if we do not make substantial cuts in the projected levels of Pentagon spending, we will do substantial damage to our economy and dramatically reduce our quality of life.

Full Story: Rep. Barney Frank: Why We Must Reduce Military Spending.

Dramatic increase in leakage of methane gas from the Arctic seabed.

Scientists have uncovered what appears to be a further dramatic increase in the leakage of methane gas that is seeping from the Arctic seabed.

Methane is about 20 times more potent than CO2 in trapping solar heat.

The findings come from measurements of carbon fluxes around the north of Russia, led by Igor Semiletov from the University of Alaska at Fairbanks.

“Methane release from the East Siberian Shelf is underway and it looks stronger than it was supposed [to be],” he said.

Professor Semiletov has been studying methane seepage in the region for the last few decades, and leads the International Siberian Shelf Study (ISSS), which has launched multiple expeditions to the Arctic Ocean.

The preliminary findings of ISSS 2009 are now being prepared for publication, he told BBC News.

Methane seepage recorded last summer was already the highest ever measured in the Arctic Ocean.

Full Story: Dramatic increase in leakage of methane gas from the Arctic seabed..

Newsweek editor asks: ‘Why are we fighting a major war in Afghanistan?’

International editor questions war in country with ‘fewer than 100 al Qaeda fighters’

Since the resignation of General Stanley McChrystal as the commander of US forces in Afghanistan and CIA Director Leon Panetta’s admission a week ago that there may be no more than fifty to a hundred al-Qaeda members in that nation, there have been increasing signs of a loss of support for the Afghan War.

Fareed Zararia, the editor of Newsweek’s international editions and CNN host, criticized the war in his strongest terms yet on his CNN program Sunday. “If Al Qaeda is down to a hundred men there at the most,” Zakaria asked, “why are we fighting a major war?”

Noting that there were more than a hundred deaths among NATO soldiers last month and that the war is estimated to cost the US more than $100 billion this year alone, Zararia wondered again,”Why are we fighting this major war against the Taliban? … If al-Qaeda itself is so weak, why are we fighting against its allies so ferociously?”

Full Story: Newsweek editor asks: ‘Why are we fighting a major war in Afghanistan?’ | Raw Story.

Spy tech that ‘monitors conversations’ being launched in Europe: report

Privacy rights advocates and civil liberties campaigners in Europe are raising the alarm about a new surveillance system that monitors conversations in public.

The surveillance system, dubbed Sigard, has been installed in Dutch city centers, government offices and prisons, and a recent test-run of the technology in Coventry, England, has British civil rights experts worried that the right to privacy will disappear in efforts to fight street crime.

The system’s manufacturer, Sound Intelligence, says it works by detecting aggression in speech patterns.

“Ninety percent of all incidents involving physical aggression are preceded by verbal aggression,” the Sound Intelligence Web site says. “The ability to spot verbal aggression before it turns into a violent outbreak delivers valuable time to security personnel and enables speedy intervention.”

Full Story: Spy tech that ‘monitors conversations’ being launched in Europe: report | Raw Story.

Against counterinsurgency in Afghanistan

Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists:

“…. you could put Mother Teresa in charge of Afghanistan and, with flows of resources of that magnitude, she would be unable to prevent the kind of corruption we see in Afghanistan today.”

It says something about American politics that Gen. Stanley McChrystal was not fired because U.S. casualties in Afghanistan are running at record levels, because the much vaunted Marja initiative has failed, or because the Kandahar offensive is already in trouble during its preliminary rollout. No, he was fired because he and his team embarrassed the White House with carelessly frank talk to a journalist. “This is a change in personnel, but not a change in policy,” said President Barack Obama in announcing General McChrystal’s dismissal. Or, in the words of Rep. James McGovern, we have the “same menu, different waiter.”

However, the real story should not be the change in personnel but the continuation of a failed policy, and there is abundant evidence that the policy is failing–both in the Rolling Stone article that got General McChrystal fired and in other recent media reports. Coalition casualties are steadily rising, and this month is the deadliest yet with over 46 U.S. and 95 coalition troops killed already. Over the past year, IED attacks have doubled. The Marja campaign, intended to model the power of the new counterinsurgency strategy, is failing: The Taliban are more popular in Marja than the corrupt official government with which the U.S. is allied and, having melted away during the front-page U.S. military offensive, Taliban fighters are now back in force. General McChrystal himself referred to Marja as “a bleeding ulcer” (a much more significant quote than what his aides might have called Vice President Joe Biden). The Kandahar campaign, for which Marja was supposed to be a glorious dress rehearsal, is months behind schedule in the face of opposition from local elders and second thoughts from an ill-prepared Afghan government. So tenuous is U.S. control of the countryside that coalition forces cannot move essential supplies along major transport routes without paying warlords hundreds of dollars per truck in protection money, some of which gets passed on to the Taliban fighters sworn to kill U.S. soldiers. Most devastating of all (and the least reported in secondary media accounts), the Rolling Stone article quotes American grunts on the frontlines saying they have lost faith in the U.S. counterinsurgency strategy. And the U.S. ambassador to Afghanistan, Karl Eikenberry, has become like Robert McNamara in Vietnam, telling his government in private that counterinsurgency is not working, only to fall in line behind the policy in public. Finally, the U.S. is losing the war on the home front too, with the Christian Science Monitor reporting that only 41 percent of Americans now believe that the war in Afghanistan can be won, while 53 percent of Americans disapprove of the way Obama is managing it.

Full Story: Against counterinsurgency in Afghanistan | Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists.

Dow Repeats Great Depression Pattern:

The Dow Jones Industrial Average is repeating a pattern that appeared just before markets fell during the Great Depression, Daryl Guppy, CEO at Guppytraders.com, told CNBC Monday.

“Those who don’t remember history are doomed to repeat it…there was a head and shoulders pattern that developed before the Depression in 1929, then with the recovery in 1930 we had another head and shoulders pattern that preceded a fall in the market, and in the current Dow situation we see an exact repeat of that environment,” Guppy said.

The Dow retreated 457.33 points, or 4.5 percent last week, to close at 9,686 Friday. Guppy said a Dow fall below 9,800 confirmed the head and shoulders pattern.

Full Story: Dow Repeats Great Depression Pattern: Charts – CNBC.

Leaked Luntz Poll: Majority of Americans don’t support Israeli flotilla raid.

Via Didi Remez (whose Coteret blog has become an indispensable resource for progressives on Israel-Palestine issues), Israel’s Channel Ten TV News was leaked a memo on a Frank Luntz poll commissioned by the right-wing propaganda outfit The Israel Project analyzing the effectiveness of the Israeli government’s public diplomacy efforts around the Gaza flotilla raid.

A summary of the findings:

1. 56% of Americans agree with the claim that there is a humanitarian crisis in Gaza;

2. 43% of Americans agree with the claim that people in Gaza are starving;

3. 34% of Americans support the Israeli operation against the Flotilla;

4. 20% of Americans “felt support” for Israel following announcement of easing of Gaza closure.

Full Story: Think Progress » Leaked Luntz Poll: Majority of Americans don’t support Israeli flotilla raid..

Medical Science and Genomic Disappointments

A June 12 article in the New York Times entitled “A Decade Later, Genetic Map Yields Few New Cures” makes the case that 10 years of genomic research have been profoundly disappointing. Announced with fanfare by then-President Bill Clinton and British Prime Minister Tony Blair in 2000, the mapping of the human genome was expected to reveal the root genetic causes of diverse, serious diseases, and engender therapeutic insights, targeted treatments and elusive cures.

That the cures have not yet ensued is perhaps neither cause for surprise nor disappointment — as this was always expected to take some time. After all, the work on cures for genetic diseases cannot begin in earnest until the culpable genes have been indicted. The disappointment, rather, is that the ranks of such genetic culprits are surprisingly thin.

The problem is not with the map of the genome, which is largely all it was claimed to be. Rather, the notion that specific variants of specific genes can be identified as the “cause” of a cancer, or of Alzheimer’s disease, may simply be wrong. In many cases, the relevant genetic variants may be rare and difficult to find. In many more, there may be multiple genes involved rather than one.

Full Story: David Katz, M.D.: The Cup of Life: Medical Science and Genomic Disappointments.

Are Eastern Religions More Science-Friendly?

Religion comes into conflict with science when it is defined by unprovable claims that can be dismissed as superstitions, and when it treats as historical facts stories that read like legends and myths to non-believers. Other aspects of religion — what I would consider the deeper and more significant elements — are not only compatible with science but enrich its findings. The best evidence of this is science’s response to the religions of the East over the course of the last 200 years. As the French Nobel laureate Romain Rolland said early in the 20th century, “Religious faith in the case of the Hindus has never been allowed to run counter to scientific laws.” The same can be said for Buddhism, which derives from the same Vedic roots.

Most of the Hindu gurus, Yoga masters, Buddhist monks and other Asian teachers who came to the West framed their traditions in a science-friendly way. Emphasizing the experiential dimension of spirituality, with its demonstrable influence on individual lives, they presented their teachings as a science of consciousness with a theoretical component and a set of practical applications for applying and testing those theories. Most of the teachers were educated in both their own traditions and the Western canon; they respected science, had actively studied it, and dialogued with Western scientists, many of whom were inspired to study Eastern concepts for both personal and professional reasons.

Full Story: Philip Goldberg: Are Eastern Religions More Science-Friendly?.

What Happens If It Doesn’t Stop Gusher?

BP’s Relief Wells Might Not Stop Oil Gusher:

As engineers bore deeper into the seafloor toward the source of the oil still spewing into the Gulf of Mexico, BP PLC is growing more confident that the relief well it expects to complete in August will succeed where all previous efforts to contain or kill the gusher have failed.

But what if it doesn’t work?

At the very least, oil would continue to spill while workers try something else.

That proposition would surely bring more misery for the people who live, work and play along the shores from Louisiana to Florida.

Full Story: BP Oil Spill Relief Well Scenarios: What Happens If It Doesn’t Stop Gusher?.

CA Gov: $91 Mil Later, 3 Months Before Vote, GOP’s Whitman Trails Jerry Brown in Polls

She’s in ‘Deep, Deep Trouble,’ Says Brown

To win the Republican primary for California governor this year, former eBay exec Meg Whitman burned through at least $80 million of her own money. After a particularly nasty primary campaign against State Insurance Commissioner Steve Poizner, however, voters were so turned off that turnout was only 25 percent — the lowest in 96 years — which meant that winning the nomination ended up costing Whitman $90 per vote.

Meanwhile, Jerry Brown, the state’s attorney general and former two-term governor, ran virtually unopposed in the Democratic Party, and spent next to nothing on his campaign.

In the month or so since the primary, Whitman has spent another $11 million, including $6 million on the sort of bloody buzz-saw negative advertising against Brown that is usually reserved for the final weeks of a campaign. And again, the Brown campaign has spent next to nothing on advertising (although a union group has anti-Whitman ads up).

Full Story: Pensito Review » CA Gov: $91 Mil Later, 3 Months Before Vote, GOP’s Whitman Trails Jerry Brown in Polls.

The push for energy deregulation threatens America’s heartland

David Sirota:

In recent weeks, Washington has provided ample evidence that the fossil-fuel industry remains as powerful as ever in the wake of the Gulf Coast apocalypse. Whether it’s Louisiana’s Democratic Sen. Mary Landrieu demanding more offshore drilling as her state gets covered in sludge, or Texas Republican Rep. Joe Barton criticizing the government for forcing BP to finance a spill-relief fund, major political players in D.C. still do energy firms’ bidding, leaving both national parties disinclined to champion stronger environmental statutes.

Such Beltway intransigence is certainly atrocious, and has rightfully generated media fury. However, congressional reluctance to proactively legislate eco-friendly regulation is less outrageous than the state-based push for full-on deregulation.

The key political battlefield in this little-noticed but big-impact fight is Colorado, which holds one of the country’s largest oil and natural gas reserves. In the state’s 2010 gubernatorial campaign, former congressman Scott McInnis, a Republican, and Denver Mayor John Hickenlooper, a Democrat, have turned the race into a competition to see who is more enthusiastic about shredding the minimal energy regulations already on the state’s books.

Full Story: Opinion | The push for energy deregulation threatens America’s heartland | Seattle Times Newspaper.

So Much for Holder’s “Forceful Response”

Despite Obama berating BP for its criminal “recklessness,” it turns out the Defense Department is still buying a whole lot of oil from them – to wit, at least $980 million worth. BP’s still-valid contracts make it the Pentagon’s largest single supplier of fuel, leading us to wonder what part of “talking out of both sides of your mouth” they don’t understand.

“BP is an active participant in multiple ongoing Defense Logistics Agency acquisition programs.” – Defense Logistics Agency spokesman Mimi Schirmacher.

Full Story: So Much for Holder’s “Forceful Response” | CommonDreams.org.

UN Warns of New War in North; Claims on Gas May Be Trigger

United Nations Secretary General Ban Ki-moon has warned that violence may break out again between Hizbullah and Israel as tensions rise over charges that the terrorist organization has obtained advanced long–range Scud missiles from Syria.

Ban’s warning came as the IDF concludes a massive training exercise in the north, where soldiers are preparing for war.

“Amidst allegations of continued arms transfers to Hizbullah… a perceptible increase in tension between the parties was recorded,” Ban reportedly wrote in his report, a copy of which was obtained by the French news agency AFP,. The report comes four years after the beginning of the Second Lebanon War, which ended with U.N. ceasefire resolution 1701 that Israel says has not stopped continued stockpiling of arms by Hizbullah.

“This raised the specter of a miscalculation by either party leading to a resumption of hostilities, with potentially devastating consequences for Lebanon and the region.” Ban noted.

The U.N. leader continued to deny there is any evidence of Hizbullah’s smuggling weapons in southern Lebanon despite foreign media and Israeli intelligence reports pointing to Syria’s freely transferring weapons into Lebanon.

Full Story: UN Warns of New War in North; Claims on Gas May Be Trigger – Defense/Middle East – Israel News – Israel National News.

“OPERATE TO FAILURE”

GLOBAL CATASTROPHE REACHES EPIC PROPORTIONS

As BP Oil Spill Lets the Genie Out Of The Bottle

Why has it been so difficult to put this GENIE (Oil & Gas) back into the bottle (Macondo Prospect, Gulf of Mexico)? Or at least keep any more of him from coming out?

There are many reasons, on many different levels, but let’s start with BP and the culture of corporate superiority that has evolved at this corporate behemoth since its founding in 1908. We’re talking about the granddaddy here – the Anglo-Persian Oil Company – which was the first to develop the oil and gas reserves discovered in the Middle East. Simply put, when you’re the biggest and the oldest in that neck of the woods, you get used to doing it your way, and ONLY your way.

Well, British Petroleum’s way of developing oil and gas throughout their planetary stomping grounds (Planet BP — a BP online, in-house magazine) is known to many insiders and outsiders alike by the catchphrase that goes like this – “OPERATE TO FAILURE”

Full Story: GLOBAL CATASTROPHE REACHES EPIC PROPORTIONS | Phoenix Rising from the Gulf.

The Million-Dollar Penny

Every summer, several financial firms competing to get the banking business of the world’s mega millionaires release what amounts to scorecards on global wealth. These data-packed reports tally the current number of our international rich and super-rich, by nation and region.

World Wealth Report 2010 is the most comprehensive of these scorecards. It’s got some fascinating details about the planet’s wealthiest of the wealthy, those households worth at least $30 million–that’s not counting their primary residence and “collectibles.”

These “ultra-high-net worth” households make up less than 1 percent of the global millionaire total, yet in 2009 and 2008 they held more than a third of combined global millionaire wealth. In other words, the global financial crash that mega-millionaire speculation triggered has ended up concentrating even more wealth in mega millionaire pockets.

The Merrill Lynch and Capgemini researchers who prepared this report also offer some lusciously revealing information about what they call “passion investing,” the vast sums the rich plow into everything from country club memberships and yachts to jewelry and fine art.

Full Story: OtherWords: The Million-Dollar Penny.

Death by Remote: But Is It Legal?

As the Barack Obama administration continues to roll out justifications for its policy of targeting U.S. citizens and others thought to be attacking U.S. troops, legal and national security experts are pondering a central question: What if there’s a mistake and the wrong person gets killed?

There are no do-overs. It is a death sentence. That, in fact, has already happened. A Reuters cameraman was killed by a U.S. drone strike when the operator mistook his camera’s long-range lens for a rocket-propelled grenade. Nevertheless, a top Obama counterterrorism official is defending the government’s right to target U.S. citizens perceived as terror threats for capture or killing, citing the example of the renegade al Qaeda-linked cleric Anwar al- Awlaki.

Al-Awlaki, 39, was born in Las Cruces, New Mexico, and is an Islamic lecturer who is a dual citizen of the U.S. and Yemen. He is a spiritual leader and former imam who has purportedly inspired Islamic terrorists. His sermons are said to have been attended by three of the 9/11 hijackers.

Full Story: Death by Remote: But Is It Legal? – IPS ipsnews.net.

Foes of Israel Adopt New Protest Measures

Hamas and Hezbollah Find Inspiration In Flotilla, Support

Protest Movements

Hamas and Hezbollah, groups that have long battled Israel with violent tactics, have begun to embrace civil disobedience, protest marches, lawsuits and boycotts—tactics they once dismissed.

For decades, Palestinian statehood aspirations seemed to lurch between negotiations and armed resistance against Israel. But a small cadre of Palestinian activists has long argued that nonviolence, in the tradition of the American civil rights movement, would be far more effective.

Officials from Hamas, the militant group that controls the Gaza Strip, point to the recent Israeli raid on a Gaza-bound flotilla, in which Israeli troops killed nine activists, as evidence there is more to gain by getting Israel to draw international condemnation through its own use of force, rather than by attacking the country.

Full Story: Foes of Israel Adopt New Protest Measures – WSJ.com.

Reports: iTunes accounts, Apple Store hacked

Various blogs are reporting that it appears some iTunes customer accounts have been hacked and that funds from those accounts may have been used to purchase apps in the iTunes App Store.

Earlier Sunday, Engadget reported an inexplicable uptick in sales of book apps by a developer identified as Thuat Nguyen. According to the blog, at the time of writing its report, Nguyen apps accounted for 42 of the top 50 books by revenue in the Books section of the iTunes App Store. Engadget went on to mention “a number of people reporting up to hundreds of dollars being spent unwillingly from their [iTunes] account to these specific books.”

Blog TNW Apple reported that the phenomenon appeared to extend beyond apps by one developer, and that it seemed to be international in scope. It also ran excerpts from several posts to the MacRumors: Forums Web site.

“Yesterday my credit union contacted me saying there was suspicious activity on my debit card.” TNW Apple quoted one post as saying. “Sure enough over 10 transactions in the $40-$50 area all on iTunes equaling to $558.”

Full Story: Reports: iTunes accounts, App Store hacked | Apple – CNET News.

Rain Damage to Plants in Ohio a Result from Gulf Oil Spill?

Is the damage to these plants located in Ohio a result from the gulf oil spill? The oil and the dispersants mixed in the ocean evaporates into the atmosphere and later falls back to earth as acid rain. This could also enter water systems. The damage to these plants look similar to the plant damage reported from states south of Ohio.

OPS: you be the judge

Turkey threatens ‘to sever ties’ with Israel

Turkey warned Israel Monday it will cut ties unless it gets an apology for a deadly raid on Gaza-bound aid ships, but the Jewish state said it will never say sorry for defending itself.

Ankara had already closed its airspace to all Israeli military aircraft in reaction to the May 31 bloodshed on a Turkish ship in which nine Turks were killed, Foreign Minister Ahmet Davutoglu told the daily Hurriyet.

The Israelis had three options, Davutoglu said in remarks published Monday.

Full Story: France24 – Turkey threatens ‘to sever ties’ with Israel.

Thomas Jefferson Feared an Aristocracy of Corporations

John Nichols:

Thomas Jefferson’s name gets thrown around quite a bit these days by the Tea Partisans, which is a good thing.

A populist movement of the right or the left that neglected Jefferson, the most radical of the first presidents, would be a sorry affair indeed.

Jefferson’s distrust of concentrated and consolidated power was such that he left a legacy for any and every dissenter against the state.

But Jefferson did not stop there.

He was, as well, a relentless critic of the monopolizing of economic power by banks, corporations and those who put their faith in what the third president referred to as “the selfish spirit of commerce (that) knows no country, and feels no passion or principle but that of gain.

Full Story: Thomas Jefferson Feared an Aristocracy of Corporations | The Nation.

Fake Sand BP is Bringing Onto Beaches

You’ll have to see this one for yourself.

Teachers’ Union Shuns Obama Aides at Convention

For two years as a presidential candidate, Barack Obama addressed educators gathered for the summer conventions of the two national teachers’ unions, and last year both groups rolled out the welcome mat for Education Secretary Arne Duncan.

But in a sign of the Obama administration’s strained relations with two of its most powerful political allies, no federal official was scheduled to speak at either convention this month, partly because union officials feared that administration speakers would face heckling.

The largest union’s meeting opened here on Saturday to a drumbeat of heated rhetoric, with several speakers calling for Mr. Duncan’s resignation, hooting delegates voting for a resolution criticizing federal programs for “undermining public education,” and the union’s president summing up 18 months of Obama education policies by saying, “This is not the change I hoped for.”

Full Story: Teachers’ Union Shuns Obama Aides at Convention – NYTimes.com.

Israel Eases Gaza Blockade Restrictions, Releasing List Of Allowed Items

Israel on Monday dropped its long-standing restrictions on allowing consumer goods into the Gaza Strip but retained tight limits on desperately needed construction materials, redefining the rules of its heavily criticized Gaza embargo on the eve of the Israeli prime minister’s trip to the White House.

The new rules, which come in response to an international outcry following a deadly Israeli raid on a blockade-busting flotilla, should bring some relief to Gaza’s 1.5 million people.

The decision ends the use of a narrow and often arbitrary list of permitted items. In a boost to the moribund Gaza economy, officials also said raw materials would soon be allowed to flow to Gaza’s shuttered factories.

Full Story: Israel Eases Gaza Blockade Restrictions, Releasing List Of Allowed Items.

Fareed Zakaria Criticizes ‘Disproportionate’ Afghanistan War On CNN (VIDEO)

Fareed Zakaria criticized the Afghanistan war in unusually harsh terms on his CNN program Sunday, saying that “the whole enterprise in Afghanistan feels disproportionate, a very expensive solution to what is turning out to be a small but real problem.”

His comments followed CIA director Leon Panetta’s admission last week that the number of Al Qaeda in Afghanistan may be down to just 50 to 100 members, or even fewer.

“If Al Qaeda is down to 100 men there at the most,” Zakaria asked, “why are we fighting a major war?”

Full Story: Fareed Zakaria Criticizes ‘Disproportionate’ Afghanistan War On CNN (VIDEO).

Divorce ‘is contagious’

Divorce can be contagious within groups of friends, according to a new study.

Full Story: Divorce ‘is contagious’ – Telegraph.

Exploding H-Bombs In Outer Space

A Very Scary Light Show: Exploding H-Bombs In Space -Code Name: Starfish Prime

The Americans launched their first atomic nuclear tests above the Earth’s atmosphere in 1958. Atom bombs had little effect on the magnetosphere, but the hydrogen bomb of July 9, 1962, did. Code-named “Starfish Prime” by the military, it literally created an artificial extension of the Van Allen belts that could be seen across the Pacific Ocean, from Hawaii to New Zealand.

In Honolulu, the explosions were front page news. “N-Blast Tonight May Be Dazzling: Good View Likely,” said the Honolulu Advertiser. Hotels held what they called “Rainbow Bomb Parties” on rooftops and verandas. When the bomb burst, people told of blackouts and strange electrical malfunctions, like garage doors opening and closing on their own. But the big show was in the sky.

Source: NPR

Looks Great, Less Nutritious?

Mother Jones:

Eating all your vegetables was a lot better for you in the ’50s. Store-bought veggies weren’t as pretty back then, but according to USDA data, they were packed with a lot more nutrients than their modern counterparts. The likely reason for the nutritional drop is that hybrid crops are often bred for size and color, not nutrients. Below, the stats for a few crops that have gone to seed.

Full Story: Looks Great, Less Nutritious? | Mother Jones.

Senior Republicans Question Steele’s Ability to Lead

Three prominent Republican lawmakers on Sunday questioned whether Michael Steele, the chairman of the Republican National Committee, can effectively lead the party after he called the conflict in Afghanistan a misguided “war of Obama’s choosing.”

Senators John McCain and Lindsey Graham, both senior Republicans on the Armed Services Committee, denounced Mr. Steele’s comments, joining a chorus of Republican criticism.

Mr. McCain of Arizona said that Mr. Steele’s remarks, made at an event last week, were “wildly inaccurate, and there’s no excuse for them,” adding that Mr. Steele had later told him in an e-mail message that his comments were misconstrued.

Full Story: Senior Republicans Question Steele’s Ability to Lead – The Caucus Blog – NYTimes.com.